Where is the outrage?

The coverage of the FBI's abuse of FISA to obtain a warrant to spy on Carter Page is a sham and a shame. The Horowitz report "identified at least 17 significant errors or omissions in the Carter Page FISA applications and many errors in the Woods Procedures" and "at least 19 references to the status quo’s threat to 'constitutionally protected activity,' notably the 'First Amendment.'” The FISA court found the report so troubling that it issued a rare public order for the FBI to report soon what it is doing to prevent making mistakes in the future. The Horowitz report also notes that it failed to find "documentary or testimonial evidence” of anti-Trump bias. Both the finding so many mistakes and the lack of finding bias deserve more attention. Here are questions I would try to answer if I were a reporter.

1. Is four mistakes per application typical? The 17 mistakes for Carter Page occurred over four applications.
2. Can the public rely on the FISA court to preserve our liberties?
3. Has the time come to eliminate FISA and stop the FBI and CIA from spying on US citizens without "normal" warrants?
4.  How many of the mistakes in the applications for Carter Page favored getting the warrants and how many worked against getting it? I presume that the answer is 17 to 0 in the next question.
5. What is the probability that all 17 mistakes favored getting the application if the probability of one mistake favoring the application is 50%. Answer = 1/131072 = 0.000007629394531 = 0.0007629394531%.
6. Is such a low probability of making so many of the mistakes in favor of getting the warrants more consistent with systematic political bias or lack of anti-Trump bias?

The lack of attention in the news media to the  abuse of FISA by FBI is shocking. If we cannot rely on the FBI to play carefully and straight then FISA cannot protect our Constitutional rights. I fear that loss of those rights is too great a price to pay for whatever benefits we are getting.

I am surprised at the lack of attention to the preponderance of mistakes that favored getting the warrant. Any possibility that political bias leads the FBI to spy on a citizen, much less a politician, strikes at the very heart of a free and fair democracy.

What really matters

Much of the debate over what is or is not one of the isms, capitalism, socialism, communism, totalitarianism, etc., is a sham and a shame. Many realities fall between classical definitions and the debate over where a particular reality falls does little to improve our understanding. The key distinction in an economic system is the extent to which it relies on liberty and voluntary cooperation  relative to coercion. My understanding of classical capitalism is that it envisions relying predominately on liberty and voluntary cooperation. My understanding of classical communism is that it relies predominately on coercion - a person works where instructed and consumes what government allocates to her. 

I want my economic system to rely predominately on liberty and voluntary cooperation. and want my government to do things that create liberty and foster voluntary cooperation. For example, a government police force enhances my liberty because it reduces that chance that a thief coerces me through theft or at gun point to give up something I own. 

I recommend this commentary.

Rs and Ds flip flop over having witnesses

The flip flops of leading Senators over whether or not to have witnesses when the Senate tries Trump is a sham and a shame. In 1999, when talking about Clinton't trial, Senator Schumer called witnesses “political theater” and Senator Graham said, "In every trial that there has ever been in the Senate regarding impeachment, witnesses were called. When you have a witness telling you about what they were doing and why, it's the difference between the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." Now Schumer wants to have witnesses and Graham does not. The difference is that Clinton and Schumer are Ds and and Trump and Graham are Rs.

Facts not in evidence

The argument put forward by Democrats (Ds) that they cannot wait for Courts to decide whether Congress can compel testimony from members of the Executive Branch is a sham and a shame.  “The argument ‘why don’t you just wait?’ amounts to this: Why don’t you just let [Mr. Trump] cheat in one more election? Why not let him cheat just one more time?,” Mr. Schiff told the press as the articles were unveiled. But "cheat just one more time" presumes a fact not in evidence. Mueller found no evidence that Mr. Trump cheated in 2016. Therefore, he cannot cheat AGAIN. 

Contestable v. Sacred Beliefs

Making a contestable belief sacred is a shame and a shame. In this excellent post, Arnold Kling distinguishes between contestable and sacred beliefs. A belief is contestable when debate over it is allowed. A belief is sacred when debate violates social norms so much that any dissenting opinion marks the speaker as a pariah. An example of a contestable belief is the belief that increasing the government's role in the provision of health care would improve the standard of living in the US. A current sacred belief in the US is that slavery is bad. By treating a contestable belief as though it is sacred, proponents are able to stifle dissent and discussion and thereby limit useful public discourse.

One example is the belief that wages for women are lower than for men only because of discrimination. Treating the belief as contestable opens the door for discussion, debate, and analysis of the possible reasons that some groups earn more on average than other groups and the role that each of these reasons plays in creating the disparity between men and women. Treating the belief as sacred, on the other hand, forecloses the discussion, debate, and analysis. People who hold the belief respond to people who express an opposing view as sexists or speaking from their privileged position. Foreclosing this discussion, debate, and analysis is, in my opinion, prevents both establishing that women suffer from discrimination and identifying public policies that are most likely to reduce effectively the discrimination they face. 

Of course, what is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. Some people hold the sacred belief that wage differentials are only the result of market forces, education and employment choices, and productivity. They respond to people who oppose the view by calling them socialist or ignorant. Once again, the result is a cessation of useful public discourse.

I agree with the perspective of the WSJ's Editorial Board

The impeachment inquiry is a sham and a shame. I agree with the Editorial Board of the WSJ that, "what strikes us is the pre-cooked nature of the exercise. This isn’t a search for truth. It’s a set-piece production to promote a foregone conclusion." No one is seeking evidence to determine a verdict; both Ds and Rs are trying to use the current hearings as a platform for presenting their narratives and advancing the prospects for increasing their power in the 2020 elections. Impeachment is a serious job and requires honest and through investigation, not biased presentations and show trials.

A serious effort to determine whether or not Trump is guilty of "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" would look very different than what is occurring in DC. A serious effort would attempt to find out what happened and when.

1. Who did Trump tell to withhold assistance to Ukraine?
2. When did he tell this person or persons and what rational, if any, did he give?
3. When did assistance to Ukraine stop?
4. Who told Ukraine that it stopped and when?
5. Who told Ukraine that resumption of assistance was contingent on their meeting certain conditions?
6. What were the conditions?
7. When did this person or persons tell Ukraine?
8. Who initiated the order for this person or persons to describe the conditions to Ukraine and when? That is, who instructed this person or persons to rely the message to Ukraine? Who instructed that person, etc? 
9. When did assistance resume?
10. Who initiated the order for assistance to resume? That is, who instructed someone to release the assistance? Who instructed that person, etc? 
11. When did the initiator give the order and what rational, if any, did the initiator give?

The answers to these questions provide the evidence that people would need to make a serious determination of whether or not Trump's recent activities regarding Ukraine constitute impeachable offenses. 

Many questions currently being answered are irrelevant to the determination of whether or not Trump's recent activities regarding Ukraine constitute impeachable offenses. Two examples follow.

1. Did Giuliani work behind the scenes to oust an ambassador? I suppose if this ambassador was a roadblock to stopping the assistance it could be relevant.
2. Is cutting off assistance to Ukraine bad policy and contrary to the interest of the USA? Being a terrible President is not an impeachable offense. The Constitution limits a President's term to four years to reduce the damage a terrible President can wreak.

I agree with the WSJ Editorial Board that the current inquiry is setting a bad precedent. 

"In a healthier political culture, Democrats would be using the Ukraine episode as an argument against Mr. Trump’s re-election. How can you trust his foreign-policy judgment in a second term when he won’t have the check of another re-election?

"Instead Democrats have pulled out the constitutional bazooka of impeachment. They are doing so in partisan fashion, contrary to their earlier pledges, and in a political rush to beat the 2020 political calendar. On the evidence and the process to date, they are turning impeachment into a routine political weapon, and future Presidents of both parties will regret it."

Media Coverage of Russian Interference in the 2016 Election

The media's coverage of Russia's interference in the 2016 election is a sham and a shame. I fault the press for not doing more to explain the overlapping goals that the Russians may have had. I also fault the press for not doing more to tell us details about the about number of ads, number in favor of Trump, number against Trump, number neutral, how the intelligence agencies determined the numbers, and how the researchers for the press determined the numbers. 

I see two narratives of the interference, the narrative I think is accurate and the narrative that predominates in the media. My narrative is that the primary goals of the interference Russia was to increase political and social discord in the US and to create mud to throw at us when we claim that their elections are rigged.  The narrative that predominates in the media has three legs. "The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the goal of (1) harming the campaign of Hillary Clinton, (2) boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump, and (3) increasing political and social discord in the United States" (number for items in list added). My preferred narrative focuses the third leg on for two reasons. First, since achieving the first two goals was the best way to achieve the third goal, the third goal is subsumes the first two. Second, the third goal is consistent with more of the ads run by Russia. 

The best way to sow political and social discord is to appeal to marginalized voters, attack presumptive winners, and foment dissent with the process for people who favor marginalized candidates. Ads that disparage H. Clinton, promote Trump, appeal to far right voters. attempt to suppress votes by African Americans are great ways to sow political and social discord. Ads in favor of Jill Stein, the Green party candidate, and Bernie Sanders, a candidate for the Democratic nomination, and ads that contradicted ads that people say favored Trump or disparaged H. Clinton can also increase discord by are not consistent with the narrative that the goal of was to harm the campaign of Hillary Clinton and to boost the candidacy of Donald Trump. I have trouble understanding how targeting "users who had shown interest in particular topics, including black history, the Black Panther Party and Malcolm X" helps elect Trump. Ongoing disinformation efforts seem to me to be more consistent with my narrative that a narrative that includes electing Trump as a goal.

My preferred narrative includes a fourth goal. I think that Russia also wanted to throw mud on our election so that they could reply, "Pot, don't call the kettle black", when we complain that their elections are rigged. All of the ads mentioned above and the release of the email messages from the DNC are consistent with this fourth goal. What better way to create discord and evidence of rigged elections that to release emails from the DNC that disparage groups of voters or demonstrate that the DNC had their thumb on the scale in favor of H. Clinton and against Bernie Sanders. 

I fault the press for not doing more to explain the overlapping goals that the Russians may have had. I recognize that a simple story is easier to sell and that, "Russians wanted Trump to win", is simpler that "Russians wanted to sow discord and ads for Trumps and to marginalized groups is a great way to sow discord". However, selling simple stories is not great journalism. Telling a complex story simply is.

I recognize that my preferred narrative differs from summary from US government intelligence agencies. The agencies speak of sabotage and trying to help Trump win the election, not sowing discord and throwing mud. The report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and "produced by the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and the ODNI, asserted that Russia had carried out a massive cyber operation ordered by Russian President Putin with the goal to sabotage the 2016 U.S. elections. The agencies concluded that Putin and the Russian government tried to help Trump win the election by discrediting Hillary Clinton and portraying her negatively relative to Trump, ... The report contained no information about how the data was collected and provided no evidence underlying its conclusions." Moreover, In May 2018, the Senate Intelligence Committee stated that, "Our staff concluded that the [intelligence community's] conclusions were accurate and on point. The Russian effort was extensive, sophisticated, and ordered by President Putin himself for the purpose of helping Donald Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton."

I have three possible responses to the summary from the intelligence agencies. The first response is that they may be correct and I may be wrong. Perhaps electing Trump was the real purpose of the Russian interference rather than a means to the real purpose of sowing discord. The second response is that the overlap between the goals is so substantial that figuring out which one is "correct" is pointless. The third response is that the agencies mis-characterized the interference. Intelligence agencies are not infallible; after all, these folks were sure that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps impartial observers would see so much evidence of interference that is NOT consistent with an attempt to elect Trump that they would conclude that an attempt to sow discord and to create mud is the best explanation for the actions. The Nation reports that the common narrative exaggerates the sophistication and misstates the apparent goal of the Russian disinformation.

I fault the news media for failing to press the intelligence agencies to learn more about how they reached the summary. The report released by the intelligence agencies did NOT present evidence. Why didn't the news media press them to provide evidence Better yet, why didn't a news agency conduct an independent investigation. News agencies studied intensively the votes in Florida after the 2000 election; why not the Russian ads in the 2016 election? No one knows if the ads ran 99 for Trump to 1 for Clinton or 50 for Trump, 20 for Stein, to 20 for Sanders, to 10 for Clinton. No one knows how they counted ads that prompted a rally to protest police violence against African Americans.